Roman and I visited our chickens. Actually we were invited to dinner by Lou and Susan, our winemaker buddies. They had taken over the chickens when we were forced to give them up. Now the feathered freaks chased bugs in the vineyard. The chickens, not Lou and Susan.

Lou is a retired architect and she had designed an impressive home for the creatures. In fact, it had an unfinished kitchen and a spacious bathroom. Later she told me that the hen coop started out as a guest house and that was why it was a bit too human for poultry.

I didn’t feel any deep emotional tug toward our former birds. They seemed familiar, but I was happy not to look at them everyday. Roman carried on a bit, but I think it was a show for Lou and Susan. They smiled like they had beat us out of something valuable, perhaps a Picasso we had accidentally put out with the garbage.

Even though we were happily no longer chicken farmers, we were both a tiny bit surprised when dinner turned out to be fried chicken.